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An American Assassin is Born! – Review by Kris Scott

Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton): Some bad shit happened to you and now you want to kill those mean old terrorists.

This is a continued topic throughout the first attempt in adapting a Vince Flynn novel. American Assassin is an action film which follows Mitch Rapp on a quest for revenge.

The story begins all happy as Larry with a home video where our protagonist is on holiday with his girlfriend. He proposes and tells his now fiancee he’ll be back in a moment with a few drinks. That’s when you realise that something is about to happen and it does. There’s gunfire, barman gets hit blood all over the camera, Mitch is pushed into a swimming pool.

Eventually, he reaches his partner but she gets killed and Mitch gets shot. Then we arrive many months later to a depressed Mitch who is hoping to kill every terrorist. This act puts him on some sort of watch list where every move he makes is monitored. This leads to him making contact with a terror cell which doesn’t involve much other than a bit of dialogue and a raid. Why didn’t the Government intervene before this? Because Mitch managed to get closer than any other intelligence agency to this cell. This guy was just normal until that day on the beach and he became Jason Bourne. Which was a bit far-fetched. I get that he was pissed off about his misses being killed in cold blood. He learnt Arabic, took part in MMA classes, went to a shooting range. Irene asks – “Why not just apply for the CIA?” Realistically that would’ve been a better option. Turns out Mitch isn’t the only one that has tried to go out and get revenge because Irene’s agency has a vigilante list. What is this Suicide Squad? Anyway back to it.

American Assassin can’t avoid the revenge/spy cliches but for me, a fan of this genre did, in fact, enjoy this take. The director makes good use of the locations he has to play with. Some of the effects are mediocre however that doesn’t take away from the story (which is basic). Although this is one of the most recent novels it is the first in terms chronology, therefore, is the better one to adapt for screen taking into account an up to date style and fear of terrorism (The novel featured the Lockerbie disaster.)

There is a lack of character development but hopefully, it builds on this as the series will expectedly continue and adapt more of the sixteen novels Vince has already created. The director employs what appears to only be basic cinematography which is nothing new to the action genre (shaky cam, fast-paced dolly shot, jump cuts.)This is only the beginning to Mitch Rapp’s story, although being off to what seems like a shaky start we will hopefully once again see Dylan

This is only the beginning to Mitch Rapp’s story, although being off to what seems like a shaky start we will hopefully once again see Dylan O’Briens portrayal as the American

Assassin and Micahel Keaton as his mentor.

Many fans of action films will likely enjoy this film. Dylan, Keaton,

Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, and Shiva Negar their performances stand out in a film that doesn’t add much to a genre already cemented in the film world.

Taylor Kitsch only gives a mediocre performance as the villain which is nothing like any role he’s done before.

About

I’m Kris Scott, co-founder of the AnyThink franchise; I’m 19 years old, I have an interest in filmmaking. I have another interest in Photography, TV Shows, Films and acting as well as Journalism and my all time favourite travel and hope you all enjoy and take interest in what we write and post. Well what I write.